“Work hard, play later.”
Once a year ever since ‘Gravity’ was released, we seem to get new stories about the voyage of space where certain characters “do not go gentle into that good night.”
I wasn’t wowed over the trailers for Ad Astra, because when you work at a cinema and spent most of your day watching trailers, well trust me when I say this didn’t stand out from the rest. I originally thought it was about saving the world or something like that. For what it didn’t advertise was a slow burn sci-fi movie that’s on the same level as ‘Blade Runner 2049’ and the emotional side as ‘First Man’. A personal story told through a first person narrative about unresolved issues from past relationship.
Basically an art house movie with a huge budget.
‘Ad Astra’ was pretty good. After only seeing it once, I feel that this will grow on me overtime and so far it has. A mixture of both ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and Terrence Malick movies. While not as great as those two comparisons, but while watching I couldn’t help to be reminded of those two.
There's some beautiful and impressive shots through out the movie, especially when the movie constantly shows you the entire scale of space and planets through the characters journey. The colors adds to environment that oozes with style and has a tranquil feel to it. I think that’s where the Blade Runner vibes really come in. Brilliant cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema.
Brad Pitt was terrific as the silent astronaut with tangled mood swings. It’s not an explosive performance, just simple enough for it to be effective. Any other actor would’ve gone big for no other reasons than being overly dramatic and it makes sense for his character to be closed off; similar to Ryan Gosling in ‘First Man’, where his emotional health comes last. You learn very little about his character, as most of his backstory is only in the background for you to piece together the puzzle.
The score was mystical and often eerie at times which helped ties in with the unknown aspects of space. The visual effects are excellent and nearly photo realistic at times - something you come to expect by now with space movies.
I wasn’t too sure about the narration at first, because it was very off putting and a cheap way for the character to express himself. However it sorta grew on me after awhile and some of it was almost rambling with Roy questioning every decision he made.
Now for the issues:
I have no idea why Liv Tyler was in this movie, because she literally does nothing and could have easily been cut out. It felt like a re shoot for some reason.
Remember when I said the visual effects are photo realistic ‘at times’, but that isn’t always the case with certain scenes. There’s a deranged chimpanzee that pops up and it looks really phoney. I think that entire scene could been cut out. I’ve brought up twice about cutting scenes, because I believe if this movie went back to the editing room one more time, then my score would be a lot higher.
There’s a ridiculously and almost laughable scene where Roy (Brad Pitt) steaks into a spaceship that he’s not suppose to be on, and all the astronauts on board go into a frenzy and accidentally start kill themselves while trying to cease Roy. No joke. Roy doesn't even do anything as he never intended to hurt them. It was cheap way of making Roy isolated for the rest of the movie. A few years ago I remember reading a horrifying incident that happened to astronaut Luca Parmitano where he reported water inside of his space suit helmet, and nearly become the first astronaut to drown in space. However, Luca remained calm throughout the whole incident despite the odds of him dying being high, but in the end he survived. So it’s really strange seeing these trained astronauts freaking out because came on board.
Overall rating: Out of the whole spectacle, I find the meaning of the movie the most striking. The themes of family, love and abandonment plays a major role in the story. The whole idea of “working hard and playing later” comes with a cost, which is the less time we spend with our loved ones and abandoning everything to pursuit something better out there when in reality the best things in life are right here. When you discover nothing there’s no turning back and no finding your way back. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now after seeing the movie.
Never underestimate James Gray as a storyteller.

* Meh.

Ad Astra galactically depicts sorrow, proving that no one can hear you cry in space. For the past few years, dramas set in the expansive dangers of space have been my bread and butter. Devouring them during my annual breakfast as I purposefully starve myself for the taste of space traversal. Every year, the likes 'Arrival', 'Blade Runner 2049', 'First Man', 'Interstellar' and my all-time favourite film 'Gravity', have secured scores ranging from outstanding to perfect. Whilst Ad Astra may be tilting towards the former adjective, it's still irrefutably one of the best films of the year thanks to Gray's understanding, yet again, of what makes a character study captivating. After unearthing the possibility that his missing father may still be alive, his astronaut son travels across the Solar System in search for him and to unravel a mysterious power surge phenomenon that threatens humanity's survival.
Immediately, one thing I need to brush off my chest is the horrendous marketing. This is not a sci-fi blockbuster. There is limited "action". And if you're wanting the next 'Star Wars' or 'Avatar', then remove yourself from the cinema and watch mind-numbing nonsense like 'Angel Has Fallen' instead. This is a James Gray extravaganza. A meticulously woven character study, harnessing melancholia to challenge an existential crisis. Thematically, Ad Astra's premise bolsters a plethora of metaphorical imagery that divulges into the empirical purpose of humanity. Majestic planets emitting every prismatic shade available, yet emanating no emotional connectivity. The vacuous expansivity of space, marking humanity's reflection on life as a mere speck of stardust. Worldly hostility reaching the depths of our galaxy, hyperbolising the "world-eating" philosophy of our own self-destruction as a species. The obsession to venture forth. Departing love, hate and grief. Welcoming nothingness.
Gray's space-opera is a sorrowful tale, intently focusing on the pressures of a son following in the footsteps of his acclaimed father. A patriarch of inspiration to many. Allowing a tangible tense bond to illuminate the stars with despair and anguish. Pitt's universally nuanced performance brings forward stoic mannerisms that allow McBride to feel these emotions. Minor glitches that break character, such as slamming the wall in frustration, showcase the purity of humanity within him.
Gray encompasses the plot around McBride. The lunar pirate raid, mayday rescue and crew brawl scenes, whilst inserting mainstream tendencies into a contemporary drama, were emblems of McBride's emotions. Fear, rage and desperation respectively. A series of gestures that, again, hark back to humanity's endurance. The mildly engaging supporting cast, ranging from Jones, Sutherland and Negga, acting as stability for McBride. Stepping stones allowing him to find his father, as if fate was dictating his alignment. Narration, shifting between inner thoughts to exposition, was overused and irked me with its basic functionality. Hoytema's cinematography could've elicited these unnecessary lines of dialogue from his beautiful imagery. And beautiful just doesn't do it justice.
Immediately, from the iridescent opening shot, Hoytema takes hold. Utilising colours and shadows to produce the incarnation of life, what it means to see. The blue of Neptune, the red of Mars. Clashing tonalities resembling McBride's emotions. Accompanied by Richter's euphoric score and the almost '2001' production design, and Ad Astra is technically a masterful piece of art. Gray's conclusion is teetering on the edge of underwhelming, for me atleast, with its rushed journey home that dissipated the simmering sorrow built exquisitely beforehand. The ending I personally would've desired, would be the ending no one wanted (but that's life I guess...).
Regardless, the small criticisms here and there are subject to change upon an inevitable rewatch. Gray is fast becoming one of my favourite directors. He is a man who understands character. He acknowledges the obsession of man. Amalgamating life's wondrously challenging hurdles into singular expressive characters. Ad Astra's meditative and resonant pacing, whilst is sure to put many viewers off, ensures that loss and grief are captured wherever a soul may be. At home or in deep space. It never vanishes.

I like quiet moments in big action/sci-fi type movies. The family sitdown at Avengers Tower in _Age of Ultron_ is probably the best part of that movie. The contemplative moments of John Wick are what make that character who he is. What is a little more odd, however, is when a quiet, reflective drama, is broken up by moments of big action/sci-fi type sequences. _Ad Astra_ is certainly the latter. The majority of _Ad Astra's_ runtime is taken up by Brad Pitt narrating environmental cosmic shots, or having quiet conversations about his father, or his mood. Then suddenly! Space pirates! It's unusual, and I don't know that it really works. _Ad Astra_ is something different, and if that's all you're looking for, by all means, give it a chance, but I don't know if I'd personally call it very good.
_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

**_Despite some utterly absurd diversions (chase scene! horror scene! shoot-out scene!), this is a quality science-fiction narrative, suggesting the answers we seek in the stars are actually found within_**
>_macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra,
dis genite et geniture deos._
- Publius Vergilius Maro; _Aeneis_ (29-19 BC)
>_N = R∗ · fp · ne · fl · fi · fc · L_
>_where:_
>_N = The number of civilisations in the Milky Way whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable (i.e. which are on our current past light cone)._
>_R∗ = The average rate of the formation of stars._
>_fp = The fraction of stars with planetary systems._
>_ne = The average number of planets, per star with planetary systems, with an environment suitable for life._
>_fl = The fraction of planets with an environment suitable for life on which life actually appears._
>_fi = The fraction of planets on which life actually appears on which intelligent life emerges._
>_fc = The fraction of planets on which intelligent life emerges that develop a technology capable of releasing detectable signs of their existence into space._
>_L = The length of time such intelligent life release detectable signals into space._
- The Drake Equation; Frank Drake (1961)
>In Drake's original hypothesis, the proposed values were:
>R∗ = 1 yr−1 (1 star formed per year, a very conservative estimate)
>fp = 0.2 to 0.5 (one fifth to one half of all stars formed will have planetary systems)
>ne = 1 to 5 (stars with planetary systems will have between 1 and 5 planets with an environment suitable for life)
>fl = 1 (100% of planets with an environment suitable for life will develop life)
>fi = 1 (100% of planets which develop life will develop intelligent life)
>fc = 0.1 to 0.2 (one tenth to one fifth of planets which develop intelligent life will develop life capable of releasing detectable signs of their existence into space)
>L = 1,000 to 100,000,000 years
>This gives N as a range between 20 and 50,000,000, although Drake asserted that, given the uncertainties involved, the more likely range was that N ≈ L, hence there are between 1,000 and 100,000,000 intelligent civilisations in the Milky Way with whom communication should be possible.
>_We're searching for intelligent life-forms that have also evolved conscious self-awareness. We're searching for conscious, intelligent life-forms that have both the available resources and the need to manipulate raw materials into tools. We're searching for intelligent, conscious, tool-making beings that have developed a language we're capable of understanding. We're searching for intelligent conscious, tool-making, communicative beings that live in social groups (so they can reap the benefits of civilization) and that develop the tools of science and mathematics._
>_We're searching for ourselves..._
- Stephen Webb; _If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life_ (2002)
A short while ago, Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja's mesmerising _Aniara_ (2018) pondered the insignificance of mankind when considered against the infinity of space and time. An esoteric science-fiction film in the tradition of Stanley Kubrick's _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky's _Solyaris_ (1972), it attempted, amongst other things, to convey the sense of near-inconceivable vastness that must be attendant to any self-respecting pseudo-realist discussion of the universe, and to convey the psychological ramifications of what it must feel like to be lost in such a vastness. This is the lineage into which _Ad Astra_ wishes to step, but for me, it has more in common with Danny Boyle's excellent _Sunshine_ (2007) and Christoper Nolan's enjoyable but flawed _Interstellar_ (2014); irrespective of its themes and tropes, it remains fundamentally a mainstream Hollywood movie. And whilst such a status can certainly hold advantages for a filmmaker (primarily in terms of budget and casting), so too are there major pitfalls in having to toe the line of commerciality and cater to demands for crowd-pleasing material, demands which often don't jibe with esoteric content. In the case of _Sunshine_, this took the form of a relatively sudden genre shift into horror that Boyle doesn't fully pull off, and in the case of _Interstellar_, it's an unnecessary third-act twist that's (paradoxically) as predictable as it is nonsensical. And so we have _Ad Astra_, where it's in the form of an overly convenient resolution and some of the most ludicrous narrative diversions I've seen since the sojourn to Canto Bight in the Rian Johnson abomination that was _Star Wars: The Last Jedi_ (2017), diversions which seem to belong in a different film entirely, so tonally unrelated are they to the more existential material surrounding them (space pirates! enraged simians! knife-fight/shoot-out!). Which is not to say, for one second, that I disliked the film – I didn't; even if the narrative never manages to get beyond the "_Heart of Darkness_ in space" template and the script relies far, far too heavily on a sub-Terrence Malick voiceover. The craft on display is exceptional and the story is thought-provoking and generally entertaining, with a terrific central performance, and some spectacular visuals (especially in the IMAX format). But it all could have been so much better.
Set at an unspecified point in the near future (an opening legend informs us, rather generically, that it's "_a time of hope and conflict_"), space travel has become routine, with the moon not unlike any major city on Earth, although there are territorial disputes and marauding pirates are a constant threat. Mars too has been colonised, although it's not yet open to the public. As the film begins, we meet SpaceCom's Maj. Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), who is working on repairs to the International Space Antenna – a massive communications array that juts miles into the sky from the surface of the Earth. When a huge explosion causes him to fall from the antenna, he remains unnaturally calm as he plummets to Earth, and is able to land relatively unscathed. In a debriefing, he's told the explosion was just one result of a series of energy surges that originated near Neptune and which have left much of Earth and the moon without power. 29 years previously, Roy's father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), left Earth as the leader of the Lima Project, a mission aimed at establishing contact with whatever alien civilisations may be elsewhere in the galaxy. Needing to get far enough from the Sun's solar interference to send out adequate communications, the Lima team travelled to the same region near Neptune from which the surges are now emanating. However, 16 years into the mission, all contact was lost. SpaceCom presumed the crew dead, but now they fear that Clifford may be behind the surges, and with an antimatter power core at his disposal, if he has become unhinged, he could create a chain reaction that would eradicate all life in the galaxy (it's best not to dwell too much on the script's fundamental misrepresentation of how matter and antimatter interact). However, all attempts at communication have failed, and so Roy's highly classified mission is simple – travel to a secure long-range communications base on Mars and record a (prewritten) message for Clifford in the hopes he might respond. And, of course, it's no spoiler to say that the mission doesn't exactly go smoothly.
_Ad Astra_, which is written by James Gray and Ethan Gross, and directed by Gray (_The Yards_; _We Own the Night_; _The Immigrant_; _The Lost City of Z_), wastes no time in tying us rigidly to Roy's perspective; it opens with a POV shot from inside his helmet, and the first words we hear are him speaking in voiceover. This sets up the narrative to come, as Roy remains the sole focaliser throughout – we see and hear what he sees and hears, we know what he knows, we learn things as he learns then, and we never experience anything with which he is not directly involved. Such rigid focalisation can lend itself to some very subtle moments. For example, as Roy thinks back to a time before his marriage broke up, there is a shot of him sitting on a bed in a darkened room. Barely visible behind him, lying down, is his then-wife Eve (a thankless and largely wordless performance by a blink-and-you-miss-her Liv Tyler). As the camera moves in on him, Eve fades out of the image – she disappears without him noticing, which sounds like it should be horribly on the nose, but because it's dark, because she was out of focus to begin with, and because by the time she disappears, Roy has come to occupy almost the entire frame, it makes the moment easy to miss, and rather poignant – he quite literally doesn't notice his wife phasing herself out of his life because of his obsession with his career (his focus on work is something he shares with Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) in Gray's masterpiece, the criminally overlooked _Lost City of Z_, although to be fair to Fawcett, Roy's single-mindedness at the expense of all else makes Fawcett look like husband-of-the-year material).
The fact that the film is set amongst the stars, but remains always tied to Roy's perception allows Gray to fashion a narrative that's both massive in scope yet emotionally intimate (in this sense, he one-ups Kubrick, whose _2001_ has all the grandeur and awe imaginable but is relatively detached from and uninterested in its characters' psychologies). Gray is aided immensely in this by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (_The Fighter_; _Her_; _Interstellar_; _Dunkirk_), arguably the finest currently active DoP not named Emmanuel Lubezki. Shot on 35mm film, van Hoytema's gorgeous photography effortlessly captures the overwhelming scale of the milieu, but also frequently shoots Pitt in tight close-ups that afford the actor little room to hide his emotions (which become more and more externalised as the film progresses).
Speaking of emotions, depending on your perspective, Pitt's portrayal of Roy is either one of the film's most laudable aspects or one of its most alienating. Initially played as emotionally closed off, if not necessarily shut down (he tells us in VO, "_I've been trained to compartmentalise my emotions_"), he's depicted as cold and distant. This stoicism, however, slowly starts to erode as his mission begins to go wrong, although there are a few early hints that all is not well - his fixation on the breakup of his marriage, for example, or his observation of the crew of the _Cepheus_ (which takes him from the moon to Mars), "_they seem at ease with themselves. What must that be like?_". His emotional state becomes more and more tempestuous as we move closer to the finale, until, rather suddenly (and rather unrealistically), he manages to steady himself in time for the _dénouement_. Pitt's performance is such that one viewer might praise it for shunning emotional grandstanding even as another might criticise it as too taciturn. Personally, I'm very much in the former camp; I think it's a terrifically modulated and minimalist performance in which Pitt uses the lack of outward emotion to inform the character's emotional beats. For example, Roy doesn't have a huge amount of dialogue (aside from that accursed VO) and for long stretches, he doesn't even have anyone to act against, so Pitt has to rely to a large extent on subtlety and nuanced gesture to convey emotion, which he does exceptionally well. Having said that, however, I can certainly understand why some might find the performance too cold – Roy is definitely not your typical Hollywood protagonist, and the problem is that if you're not impressed by Pitt, I'd imagine it must be very difficult to get into the film at all as he's in literally every scene.
Thematically, on the most basic of levels, _Ad Astra_ is the story of two men obsessed with their profession to the detriment of all else - a theme brought to perfection in the work of Michael Mann. Such a theme is not unusual in Gray's films, receiving its most thorough exploration in Percy Fawcett and Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) in _The Lost City of Z_. Additionally, like most of Gray's films, _Ad Astra_ is heavily androcentric, with neither Liv Tyler nor Ruth Negga (as the administer of the SpaceCom base on Mars) given much to do. In this sense, it's a study of masculinity, much as were its most obvious narrative influences – Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ (1899) and Francis Ford Coppola's Conrad-adaptation, _Apocalypse Now_ (1979). In the reformulation of the narrative template, Roy is Charles Marlow (Cpt. Benjamin L. Willard in the film), whilst Clifford is Kurtz. In the original, Marlow, a merchant seaman, must locate revered ivory trader Kurtz, who has established himself as a demigod at a trading post on the Congo River. In the film, set at the tail-end of the Vietnam War, US Army captain Willard (Martin Sheen) must travel from South Vietnam into Cambodia to track down Col. Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a once-legendary but now renegade Army Special Forces officer who, in all probability, has gone insane. The narrative parallels are obvious enough – a conflicted man sent to find a brilliant and pioneering man who has gone off-grid and who must be stopped, with the journey proving to be as much about travelling into the self as reaching a specific geographical destination. All three narratives also feature a roughly similar relationship between the two characters whereby the man searching deeply admires the man for whom he is searching.
Of course, _Ad Astra_ is also an esoteric science fiction film that looks at issues such as humanity's place in the galaxy and the search for intelligent life. An especially interesting theme that comes up when Roy is on the moon is commercialism and humanity's tendency to taint anything we touch. The commercialism of space travel is introduced when Roy takes a Virgin America shuttle to the moon, whilst an exterior wide shot of a lunar tourist base shows signs for, amongst others, Applebee's, DHL, and Subway. And since the moon is now so like Earth, thus it has become blighted by many of the same issues as Earth; crime, political division, materialism - the grandeur of space travel infected with the mundanities of Earth. This point is driven home by the references to territorial disputes and the problem of marauders, which is significant enough for Roy to need a military escort from the base to the _Cepheus_. And if all this wasn't enough to get the point across, in VO, we hear Roy lament how sickened Clifford would be with what the moon has become, pointing out it's now simply a "_re-creation of what we're running from on Earth. We're world eaters_". All of which helps create the impression of a future that's reasonably familiar and relatively plausible, given current technologies. Indeed, the lived-in nature of the film's environment is superbly realised by production designer Kevin Thompson (_Birth_; _The Adjustment Bureau_; _Okja_), whose discoloured sets and gritty textures are as far from the more glossy end of science fiction as you could imagine.
However, for all these positives, some significant problems detract from the whole. For me, there were three main flaws; 1) a poorly written and hugely distracting voiceover upon which Gray relies far too heavily, 2) three ludicrous action scenes that accomplish nothing and which feel like they're from another movie entirely, and 3) an anti-climactic and overly neat dénouement.
To look first at those three scenes, although they all occur in the first half of the film (with two in the first act), to describe them in any detail would constitute a spoiler, so I'll just give a very basic overview – the first is a chase scene involving moon buggies, the second is something more suited to Paul W.S. Anderson's hugely underrated _Event Horizon_ (1997), and the third is a shoot-out/knife fight, which is the most narratively justified of the three, but still a ridiculously over-the-top scene for a film of this nature. Imagine if in _2001_, instead of attempting to outwit HAL 9000, Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) had pulled out a shotgun and engaged in a running battle with androids controlled by the AI. Ridiculous? Of course. The three scenes in _Ad Astra_ are only slightly less so. The third at least does have a narrative point insofar as it serves as the springboard for the entire second half of the movie, but it's still a monumentally silly way for Gray and Gross to advance the plot when there were far more organic ways to do so. The first two scenes, however, serve no such purpose – remove them from the film, and you'd have to change virtually nothing in the surrounding material - they're that disconnected and irrelevant, right out of the Rian Johnson school of narrative construction. They lead nowhere, reveal nothing about the character or his psychology, and have no connection to the esoteric themes found elsewhere. You know the French plantation scene in _Apocalypse Now Redux_? They make that scene look pivotal. I really can't over-emphasise how much they pulled me out of the film and detracted from the excellent work elsewhere.
As for the other two issues (the VO and the ending), obviously, I can't say much of anything about the finale without spoilers, so all I'll say is that I'm led to believe the ending as it exists now was a reshoot after test audiences responded poorly to the original (and far superior) ending – look it up online; the originally scripted ending made a lot more sense and was as thematically fascinating as it was existentially audacious (sheesh, test audiences, am I right?).
In terms of the VO, good lord, it's bad. I can count on one hand the number of times VO has been done well in film – there's the hard-boiled noir films of the 40s and 50s, the Michael Herr-written narration of _Apocalypse Now_, the work of Terrence Malick, Andrew Dominick's _The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford_ (2007), and...well, that's about it really. The VO is obviously intended to function in much the same way as Willard's in _Apocalypse Now_, providing some factual info, but also probing the soul of the character. However, the problem is that most of the time, the voice is describing something we can see plain as day on the screen. Pitt's performance is strong enough that the VO is unnecessary. You know the way the best films show rather than tell and the worst tell rather than show? _Ad Astra_ does both, and it's hugely distracting – you think "_I don't know why he saved my life_" ruins the end of the original version of Ridley Scott's _Blade Runner_ (1982)? I lost count of the number of times Roy's derivative interior monologue undermined the power of the moment. By the half-way stage of the film, I was sick of his cod-philosophical ramblings that aspire to portentousness, but end up coming across as someone trying and failing to imitate Malick.
With all that said, however, it's a testament to the story the film tells that despite these significant hurdles, I still enjoyed it. Pitt's performance is excellent, and Gray, who has yet to make a bad film, is his accomplished self. The storyline is interesting, and what it says about man's place in the universe, particularly whether or not we're alone, is unexpected and fascinating. The original ending was infinitely superior, the VO is a huge misstep, and the action detours are ludicrous, but this is still an entertaining movie. It's not a patch on _Lost City of Z_, but the manner in which Gray juxtaposes an intimate tone with such massive themes is really impressive. In essence, _Ad Astra_ is a fable about the importance of transient human connection, played out against the backdrop of the infinite, and despite some not insignificant problems, it's well worth checking out.

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I love sci-fi space movies, especially when these depict the cosmos in such a visually stunning manner as Ad Astra does. It’s one of those films where the visuals elevate whatever narrative is being told. If you don’t get goosebumps or get excited with the opening sequence of this movie, then it might not be the film you’re looking for. From the quiet but powerful sound design to the impressive cinematography, James Gray delivers a visually captivating story with an outstanding protagonist. Brad Pitt is definitely getting tons of nominations this awards season (let’s not forget his amazing role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
His subtle yet incredibly emotional performance shows an astonishing range. He carries the whole screenplay in his shoulders, and I don’t mind that at all. There’s a lot of narration, and here’s where I transition to the most divisive aspect of the movie: it’s a slow-burn. Now, there’s no problem with a film being deliberately slow. In fact, some of my favorite movies of all-time aren’t fast-paced. They cherish their story and make the audience feel interested in what they’re experiencing. Ad Astra isn’t an action flick or a comedy, it’s a character-driven drama, so most of the runtime is devoted to developing Roy.
That said, don’t go in with expectations of feeling entertained all the time. Some moments aren’t supposed to excite you or leave you jaw-dropped. Some sequences are just meant to make you feel immersed by the environment, be lost in space (IMAX is the mandatory way of watching this feature). Don’t expect the film to make an 80-day trip to some planet end in two cuts and 20 seconds. Gray purposefully establishes a slow pace. Obviously, general audiences don’t usually enjoy this type of flicks, but if you’re able to manage your expectations realistically, you’re one step closer to not feel bored throughout the runtime.
The first act is the one that captures everyone’s attention. It doesn’t waste time on Earth, it goes through what’s happening pretty quickly, and it possesses 90% of the heavy action (including one of the best opening sequences of the year). Sound has a significant impact on how Gray films his sequences, and it’s unbelievable how well-shot the chasing scenes on the Moon are. Scientifically speaking, this is no Interstellar where you simply have to accept some mind-blowing yet unjustified stuff. Ad Astra doesn’t have a single scene where one might think “this completely takes me out of the movie, I can’t accept that this is possible in some fictional future”. This is a huge compliment to a space film containing several launches, lunar bases, and (very) long space journeys.
However, the remaining two acts focus intensely on Pitt’s character, slowing down the main plot. Like I wrote above, there’s a lot of development through Roy’s thoughts. Extensive narration is almost always an issue, even when the narrator is Brad Pitt. Some monologues do indeed develop the character or explain what he’s feeling, but some tend to fall into the philosophical side that doesn’t always carry a meaningful or interesting message. Using everyday language, sometimes it’s a bit boring… Additionally, the ending might be a letdown for a lot of people. Tommy Lee Jones (H. Clifford McBride) doesn’t have a lot of screentime, and I can’t really delve into details about his storyline, but his character’s relationship with Roy doesn’t exactly serve as a fantastic payoff.
Max Richter’s score is one of 2019’s best, and I hope it gets recognized by every award show. It definitely helps the experience to be more enthralling. The lack of sound in space is also powerful in its own way. Beautifully-edited, but with a continuously slow pace that doesn’t change from the moment the second act begins. However, the story of Ad Astra is vastly superior to, for example, Gray’s The Lost City of Z, which I genuinely disliked. This space adventure is visually more exciting, its story is more engaging, and its protagonist is more compelling than everything else in Gray’s previous installment. Finally, it’s one of those movies that watching at a film theater (mainly IMAX) or at home, makes a massive difference. You’ll never feel as entertained or captivated at home, so make sure to check this one at the best possible screen near you.
All in all, Ad Astra is yet another display case for Brad Pitt’s chances at winning an Oscar. With a subtle yet powerful performance, Pitt carries the whole story to safe harbor with tremendous help from the eyegasmic visuals. Technically, it’s one of 2019’s closest movies to being perfect. Very well-shot, well-edited, with an immersive score, and gorgeous cinematography. However, it’s a slow-burn that doesn’t always work as such. Narration is the go-to method to develop Pitt’s character, and while it works most of the time, it slows down the main plot, becoming a tad boring during a few moments. The ending isn’t the impactful payoff that the film needed, and the incredible supporting cast is under-utilized. In the end, it’s still a great movie and one that should be seen at the biggest and best screen possible, so go see it for yourself!
Rating: B+

‘Ad Astra’ is about as art house as Hollywood cinema gets; disguising a metaphysical drama as an action-packed sci-fi adventure is a clever move for James Gray. While not perfect, it’s consistently entertaining whilst offering an introspective investigation on how parents influence their children. While a journey to the outer realms of our solar system, ‘Ad Astra’ is also an exploration of the human heart.
- Charlie David Page
Read Charlie's full article...
https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-ad-astra-a-luscious-and-meticulous-space-drama

Film of the events of a group of boys who enjoy filming with super 8. Their aim is to make a film since they love the magic of cinema. At first the train wreck is more scenic than realistic. Both the plot at certain points and the setting are very reminiscent of the Stranger Things series. I think the creators of the TV series were also inspired by this film. This is a film that is also suitable for children to watch. The end didn’t convince me much. It’s a pleasant film but in some points it could have been developed better. Film that I recommend to lovers of the late 70s and lovers of stories about a group of friends. A typically American movie.

Sometimes I feel like my interests and taste really follow the road less traveled. This is to say that Super 8 surprised me by becoming one of my Favorite.Movies.Ever. There I said it.
It seems to merge genres slightly: science fiction, of course, a bit of coming of age, a slice of movie-within-a-movie - is that all?
I think I have watched this movie three times, and probably will again. It reminds me of Monsters, another low key sci-fi/monster movie I really like. The train scene about twenty minutes into Super 8 is a blockbuster scene, so much so that I believe most movies wouldn't be able to keep the rest of the film from being anti-climactic. Usually a tremendous scene like that is saved for the end of a movie, but the plot required to be right where it was. But although the action and suspense ramps down a bit following it, the movie goes to work on building up the rest of the plot and growing the characters.
The young actors starring in this movie are terrific, in my opinion, which may place me in an unfortunate minority. But judge for yourself, and try not to set the bar of excellence higher than we do for adult actors. They are smart and witty at times, but are clearly kids with kid behavior at other times, rather than miniature adults with adult lines.
So you notice I used the words 'favorite movie,' not best. I am sure there are hundreds of movies better made than this one, but I doubt I would want to watch too many of them multiple times like I have watched Super 8.

And I just knew then that I was there, that I existed.
Super 8 is written and directed by J. J. Abrams. It stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard and Riley Griffiths. Music is scored by Michael Giacchino and cinematography by Larry Fong. The film tells the story of a group of young teenagers in Lillian, Ohio, 1979, who are filming their own Super 8 zombie movie when a train derails and crashes, releasing an unknown being into their midst. As the town is threatened and mysteries start to mount up, the youngsters must come to terms with not only that, but also growing up mentally and physically.
It's feels nigh on impossible to come across a review for Super 8 that doesn't contain the name Spielberg. With the film overtly Spiebergian in themes and production, and the bearded maestro of the film geek masses on producer duties here, his name hangs over Abrams' movie like a watchful father figure. If that bothers Abrams, or indeed if it detracts from the quality of his movie? Then that's up for debate by those not enamoured with Spielberg's movies of the late 70s and early 80s. But to my mind it's a blessing, a triumph of sorts to be mentioned in the same breath as the beard and those wonderful movies of his. Part homage, part nostalgia harking, Super 8 is still one great, sweet and affecting J.J. Abrams movie.
Abrams himself is on record as saying that Super 8 is born out of two movie ideas he had, this while also being drawn from his own recollections in childhood, and the two movie idea shows. It's very much a two part picture in structure, part Stand by Me coming of ager, part Goonie like monster hunt. Nothing wrong with that, mind. However, with that comes some form of irritation to those who venture in expecting a big ole alien attack movie. Oh for sure he exists, and he is big and mean, although he has just cause, but the creature is not the centre piece of the movie. It's the human characters that form the basis of Super 8, be it the kids adjusting to their changing emotions and hormones, or the single parent fathers coming to terms with absence of love and grief, Super 8 is brimming with human heart. Yet never is it schmaltzy.
PRODUCTION VALUE!
Aided by Fong's warm metallic hued photography and Giacchino's beautiful heart tugging score (both energised in Blu-ray), Super 8 always carries a magical mysticism to it. The warm glow of nostalgia cloaks the proceedings, never cloying, always smile inducing, offering comfort as the narrative deals out observations about the need to let go while playing out as a deft, if unsubtle, meditation on grief and growing pains. The cast do wonders for their director, Fanning and Courtney are exemplary, so much raw emotion and energy, it's unfussy and believable acting. Griffith's, too, is wonderful as the booming voiced wannabe director, a tender nod of the head to the many young amateur directors out there; of which Abrams was once one himself. While Eldard and Chandler as the two fathers are most affecting, the pangs of juggling single parenting with loss are deeply portrayed.
Of the director himself? He crafts it with care and precision, a knowing of the pulse beat of the thematics to drive it forward. His attention to period details are admirable, from the dialogue sparks involving Walkman's and Soviet paranoia, to the items located within the bedrooms and houses of our young protagonists, he is a man who knows his late 70s and early 80s onions. Spielberg was far from finished as a film maker of note at the time of Super 8's release, but it did feel then that the torch was deftly being passed sideways. After the excellence of Star Trek he followed up with this most delightful of movies, where Abrams showed in his work a love of cinema that's wholly infectious. 9/10

I kind of liked the making-a-movie-within-the-movie aspect of _Super 8_ a lot more than the chief plot with the monster and the train and the badman government and the blah blah blah. Which isn't ideal, but saying that obviously means I liked something about it.
_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

Unsuccessful children movie trying to follow the tradition of The Goonies or E.T. from overrated J.J. Abrams.
Tons of money are wasted on FX trying to hide a weak story and a set of terrible dialogues supposedly coming from children that are totally overacted and annoyingly always shouting.
You don't miss anything if you skip Super 8.

The plot was so predictable I could guess every second of it. Started great but went downhill as each minute passed.

> The man is not ready yet for the eternal life!?
The first time when I saw the trailer, I thought it might be a female version or a close kind of 'Winter's Tale'. Though this is not a fairy tale, but a heartwarming sci-fantasy romedy. For every action in the movie they explained it very clearly, that's the indication of the involvement of the science, but mostly bogus for the present era. So that is where fantasy steps in.
A beautiful concept with the wonderful cast. And again they did not make full use of it, lacked a deep exploration into the theme they have created for this movie. Blake Lively solely handled the movie and none others were up to the expectation, expect Harrison Ford in his about 5% of the screen presence.
Like most of the guys, I am displeased with the ending. Till then I was enjoying the film, but later it ruined my mood. Because humans are always desiring for things which are out of his league and I'm human too. Since I'm not Adaline I was rooting her and I was disappointed once the twist at the end came. Later I accepted that, because it was a perfect conclusion regarding whatever I wanted.
In an entertainment movie, sometime we won't care about what's good and bad, but need some good pleasure for the time we spend for it. Especially in this kind of theme, which are out of reality, we usually love a happy ending. Because families want to leave the cinema hall with a good mood as it is indeed targeted for family audiences. So I am not going to spoil you by revealing facts about the movie, but I think you should watch it if you like modern world fantasy.
6½/10

I recall meeting Daniel Day-Lewis some years ago, he had just stepped from his motor bike and proved to be a charming, engaging man extremely far removed from the racist and odious "Bill the Butcher" character he so expertly creates in this hard, gritty and brutal depiction of the almost tribal existences lived by many in 1860s New York. Leonardo di Caprio ("Vallon") arrives in that city's Five Points area determined to avenge the death of his father many years earlier at the hands of this ruthless overlord. Initially ingratiating himself, he soon realises that it's going to take every ounce of his courage and resilience to challenge the status quo, and that some hefty sacrifices are going to have to be made. He is not just struggling against his nemesis, but against prejudice, corruption and a prevailing, endemic, sense of fear. The supporting cast are what really makes this special - Cameron Diaz, again so far removed from her more famous roles, alongside Jim Broadbent as the shrewd, but rather cowardly "Boss Tweed"; Brendan Gleeson and John C. Reilly all contribute to this tautly directed story of lawlessness and loyalty - with a bit of Civil War conscription thrown in to add to the toxicity of it all. The last 20 minutes are really captivating, and Scorsese with some masterful scoring from Howard Shore manages to leave us feeling exhilarated and uncomfortable at the same time!

Well... I kind of feel like giving this 10 stars based on Salvation and, especially, Genisys. I mean, in retrospect, compared to those two, it actually feels like you are watching a really good movie doesn't it?
It has a plot that actually makes sense, and, unlike Genisys, it fits into the greater Terminator story without changing everything just to, well, just to change the entire canon and story for the sake of... what? I honestly don't know.
However, when you compare it to Terminator and T2, it actually seems like you are watching a horrible movie. Nick Stahl was possibly the worst person to play John Conner they could have cast, Sarah Coner is gone (and with her the protagonist everyone loved) and Claire Danes just doesn't seem to know what she's doing in the film.
Not only that, but Stahl comes across as the worst possible leader on earth... and he's the one that is supposed to be the legend that finally beats the machines? Seriously? Him?
It might have been better if the Terminatrix was in it for more than a blink of the eye, but she kind of takes a back seat to everything else that is going on and leaves us wondering why they even added her into the movie.
Ultimately, it's not a good film. However, compared to Salvation and the typo, it comes across as a masterpiece.

Is it in the song "American Pie" where Don McLean sings "Fire is the Devil's only friend"? Well, I hate to contradict him, but I am afraid time travel is also one of his allies - especially when it is handled in quite such a derivative fashion as this. This time Arnie returns from the future to protect the under-the-radar drifter "Connor" (Nick Stahl) and his as yet unknown, future, wife "Kate" (Claire Danes) from another, much more state of the art "Terminator" - the "T-X" (Kristanna Loken). The plot thickens when we discover that her father is an US Air Force general in charge of an whole load of military tech and that baddies Skynet hope to be able to manipulate the past and take control of the defences leaving the nation open to attack from even more of their deadly machines. Could they be re-inventing their own future - on their own, dastardly, terms? Well, of course the original T-1000 (our friendly, neighbourhood, "Terminator") is determined to work with "Connor" and the now remarkably adept with weaponry "Kate" to ensure that this catastrophe is thwarted. Nope, there is not the slightest amount of menace or jeopardy here at all. You might as well just watch the last ten minutes and confirm what you knew was going to happen from the start of this completely unnecessary sequel. The horse has been well and truly flogged; the action scenes - though impressive enough on the VFX front - are all repetitively predictable and frankly rather dull. Neither Stahl nor Danes really fit into their roles particularly well, and strong as he is, Mr. Schwarzenegger can only do so much of the heavy lifting before even his broad shoulders get too tired to prop the whole thing up. Mark Famiglietti provides a bit of eye candy, but otherwise this is all poorly written and delivered, forgettable, stuff that just about passes OK the time in front of the telly.

The worst _Terminator_ movie. Which seeing as what came after it is... Quite the burn.
_Final rating:★½: - Boring/disappointing. Avoid where possible._

SPOILERS
Under-rated, worthy chapter to the story, with surprisingly provocative ideas and some stellar acting.
While this movie admittedly has neither the grit of T1 nor the grand vision or pathos of T2, I'd like to share what I believe to be three elements which together cement T3's place in the canon of the Terminator franchise.
The first is the way the actors acted the relationship between Connor and the T-800. While Connor has memories that we the audience recall from T2, the T-800, played by Arnold, was not the same T-800 from T2. This is just another machine from off an assembly line of T-800s that were manufactured. Yeah, Arnold looks like Arnold, but this T-800 has no memory of the previous installment because it was not there. And he acts disconnected, distant and mechanical, betraying zero connection to Connor. That was really cool, and helped we the audience appreciate that, where the T-800 comes from, is a much bigger place than we had heretofore really digested. We only ever saw one or two at a time back in our time; the reality we had not yet seen by the time of T3, is that the future was full of these things, and there's nothing personal about them. We the audience wanted to reconnect to all the good feelings from the end of T2, we wanted to get personal with these machines, and that's really hard to do. This movie smacked us back to "reality".
The second aspect is that this is the movie that puts the transition to SkyNet into a context that we could see. Now we know why and how the government handed control over to SkyNet. T3 displayed what we'd heard a little about in T1, and a little more about in T2, but it did so in a way that did not prompt much in the way of "where did that come from?" or "what are they talking about" that I've ever come across (Terminator Salvation failed test this miserably, spectacularly).
The third and final aspect of the movie that, for me, was rather provocative is that, right up to the end, we the audience are following the stubborn view of Connor that judgment day can be stopped. He was sure they'd stopped it at the end of T2. He was sure they were racing to stop it throughout T3...but, if we the audience stopped ourselves from being emotionally carried away, we'd have come to the realization Connor did earlier that judgment day could not be stopped. The terminators kept coming back from the future because the technology had advanced to where it was both possible and necessary. So judgment day did happen, and the terminator being there meant it couldn't be stopped.
Is T3 the best in the franchise? Heck no! C'mon, I'm not totally crazy. Is it the worst? I don't think so, at all. (I, personally, lay that crown on Terminator Salvation, but I digress...) T2 is the best, for me, for a few reasons. T1 is the honourable second because it started the story and set up many of the devices that would help make T2 among the great sequals of all time - right up there with Godfather 2 and Star Wars Episode 2, and Blade II :-)

Excellent!
I'm not fully sold on the ending, though it isn't anything less than good either way, but the rest of 'Mystic River' is quality. The cast are superb, whether that be the main trio of Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon or the supporting Laurence Fishburne and Marcia Gay Harden. Bacon and Fishburne make for a terrific buddy cop duo, miles better than director Clint Eastwood's attempt with Charlie Sheen in the former's 1990 release 'The Rookie'.
The conclusion does I guess go in line with what precedes it, particularly with Robbins' character, but I'm not fully convinced by who is eventually unveiled as you know what. That's not to say it's a bad end, as noted at the top, as it's still entertaining no matter what.

Mystic River continuously outflows its poignant crime investigation through a meticulously gritty screenplay. The past haunts us. Experiences and encounters, grossly susceptible and an impressionably young age, returning viciously with psychological detriments. A naive boy that just didn’t know any better. Abducted. An unresolved mystery that manifested itself into an intricately societal Massachusetts neighbourhood, where one disturbance can erupt into a multitude of hatred from the cold concrete beneath them.
A father’s daughter mercilessly murdered in the streets that he, and his two ex-friends, played hockey in. Anguish. Guilt. Vengeance. His childhood pals, one assigned the task of searching for the killer and the other forced into battling his own justifications for not murdering her, sending their condolences to the grieving father. Yet, Mystic River refuses to tell a simple crime drama. Eastwood, with his insatiably concise attention to the screenplay, elevated the mystery by providing an illustration of emotive complexity. One that many inflict upon themselves. Torment. These three individuals, with one visibly undergoing traumatic bewilderment, exhume indications of self-torment.
Mystic River does not flow water. The elaborate dialogue is too viscous for the aqueous substance. Rather, it flows blood. Bacon’s detective role combating his duties as a justice seeker, that with the liabilities of adolescent friendship. Determining the fate of neighbours within his hands. Robbins’ psychologically damaged husband role, fabricating stories to protect his moral high ground. And Penn’s award-winning performance as the father, embroiled in a plethora of intense emotions that express the full journey of bereavement. As separate souls, these three give life to Helgeland’s script that, whilst frequently becomes overwrought with unnecessary conversations that repeat earlier information, undeniably captivates with its foundational strength in investigation building.
Eastwood takes a differing approach. Instead of the classic yet saturated “who dunnit!?” narrative structure, he settled for displaying the mechanisms of detective fieldwork. Composing a timeline but questioning witnesses and suspects. Revisiting evidence to accurately imagine the murder as it happened. See, Mystic River works not for its “twists” and “turns” so to speak, but for its richly developed characters and constant focus on the investigation itself. The sensational performances, acute direction and gritty aesthetics provide the script with leverage. It exposes the rawness of the situation beautifully. Not to mention the exquisite pacing that made two and half hours flow by quicker than a hockey stick crashing down a raging waterfall.
The conclusion should’ve been tighter, with Eastwood diminishing much of the staying power by unnecessarily extending its resolution. By simply ending on Jimmy and Sean coming to terms with what’s just happened, it enables the shock of its ending to simmer much more violently than Linney exclaiming how everyone else is weak compared to her and her husband.
So whilst not perfect, Eastwood adapts Lehane’s novel with a sense of emotional urgency. Once the grit settles in, it never lets up, taking you on a roaring ride down a river of torment.

***Evils of the past and the problems with vigilante justice***
Released in 2003 and directed by Clint Eastwood, “Mystic River” tells the story of three men from a working class neighborhood in Boston. While playing in the street as kids, one of them is abducted and sexually abused for days. As adults they’ve drifted apart. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is a reformed con who runs a successful market when his daughter is suddenly murdered (Emmy Rossum). Sean (Kevin Bacon) investigates the murder with his partner, Whitey (Laurence Fishburne), with evidence eventually pointing toward Dave (Timothy Bottoms), the one who was abducted. Marcia Gay Harden plays Dave’s anxious spouse while Laura Linney plays Jimmy’s loyal wife.
This is similar in tone & theme to the melancholy “Sleepers” (1996), but less episodic and more dramatically gripping. The movie has the confidence to take its time and flesh-out the characters. It’s a psychological crime drama that works as both a whodunit and a tragedy. The intrinsic problems of vigilante justice are cogently illustrated.
Some people have misinterpreted the movie because they missed some things. For instance, they criticize the curious Lady Macbeth-like monologue of Annabeth (Linney) at the end. But watch the movie again, pay close attention, and the answers are there. I’d say more, but I don’t want to give anything away (you’re welcome to write me if you’d like some insights).
“Mystic River” is not something that can be casually watched; it’s a deep drama with three-dimensional characters, potently exploring several intriguing issues: How abuses of the past affect the present; the danger of hiding recesses of your psyche; the folly of not getting spiritual help for deep-rooted psychological concerns; disloyalty/loyalty; doing the wrong thing for the right reasons; jumping to wrong conclusions based on dubious info; houses divided cannot stand; the importance of encouraging one’s spouse for the sake of familial health & survival; “king of the castle”; etc.
The film runs 2 hours, 18 minutes and was shot in Boston.
GRADE: A

The _Die Hard 3_ of the _Taken_ franchise, except like... Nowhere near as good. Serviceable, but a step down from the first film, and even that one was pretty overrated.
_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

I enjoyed this movie as a no-brainer action/thriller flick. Sure, it has a bunch of illogical and idiotic elements in but I have seen a lot worse. The movie certainly do not deserve the ridiculously low ratings that some people have given it.
It is perhaps not as good as the first movie, mostly due to the silly bits and pieces, but as a plain vanilla action/thriller it is certainly passable. I generally do like Liam Neeson. I did like him in the first Taken movie and I do like him in this one. The other actors with the possible exception of his wife and daughter are mostly there to fill up the scenes.
After a semi-dull beginning which is pretty much just setting up a reason for them all being in Istanbul, Bryan and his wife is, surprise, surprise, taken and that is pretty much when the action starts and from there on it is pretty much action all the way.
As have been mentioned, there are a lot of stupid things happening in the movie. Dropping grenades in the middle of Istanbul seemingly without anyone really reacting for instance. Bryan’s daughter have failed to take a drivers licence in the states several times but still, when thrown into a car with a manual gear stick, she handles the car like a stunt driver. Then we have a violin player that sits in the same spot all the time? Not to mention crashing into the embassy while being fired upon by the embassy marine guards and then they can just sit there in the wrecked car, in front of the embassy, while Bryan calls for help from some guy playing golf in the states.
It is clear that the Luc Besson didn’t really put realism very high on his agenda for this movie. But then this wouldn’t be the first time for him. Overlook the silliness and you have a decent enough action/thriller flick. At least I enjoyed it and I am normally not too forgiving when it comes to stupid and unrealistic stuff in movies.

Taken 2 was... Not as good as the first one. Yes, I am sad to say it is not as good but on the other hand the story is still sound and the action is better and faster then before. Liam Neeson plays his role excellently while some on the other cast members didn't preform as well. All in all a good movie but there are some little problems, but worth seeing any way.

Allegiant takes the Divergent series in a direction that just doesn’t work, despite having the same strong visuals and solid score as the previous films. The plot feels stretched thin, trying too hard to expand the world while failing to give any real weight to the story. There’s an attempt to build tension and introduce new conflicts, but the character depth just isn’t there. Tris, who started as a strong lead, feels sidelined by a weak script, and halfway through, I found myself disconnected from her journey. The pacing is all over the place, with rushed moments that should have been developed and long stretches that drag without real purpose.
The directing tries to hold things together, but it feels like the movie is constantly fighting against itself. Key decisions, especially involving Miles Teller’s character, make no sense at all. Shailene Woodley does her best with what she’s given, but the material doesn't support her performance. The rest of the cast ranges from passable to forgettable, with little to no meaningful character growth. Even the chemistry between characters, which was at least somewhat engaging in the previous films, feels forced and lifeless here.
Visually, the cinematography and effects are decent, but they can’t save the film from its weak storytelling. The score is one of the few redeeming factors, adding some much-needed emotion and tension, but it isn’t enough to carry the film. The biggest issue is the lack of a satisfying climax or resolution. The movie builds toward something, only to fizzle out completely, leaving an empty, frustrating ending. It’s no surprise this installment flopped, considering how little effort seemed to go into improving the story. Instead of elevating the franchise, Allegiant feels like a step backward, making it clear why the final chapter was scrapped.

Picking up where "Insurgent" left off; "Tris" and "Four" determine that they must escape the walls of Chicago and make a new life for themselves - regardless of the risks and uncertainty. Once free - perhaps the only few moments of tension in the film - they hook up with a group of ostensibly like-minded rebels; but are they who they say they are? Seeds of suspicion are sewn that test the relationship between Theo & Shailene; and frankly the patience of the viewer. Jeff Daniels tries hard to inject some menace as "David" but Miles Teller "Peter" is just plain irritating. We are clearly heading for a grand-scale denouement, but where is it? Instead someone decided to leave us with some ambiguity (I suspect a fourth in the franchise may have been, at one stage, on the cards?) The actors are going through the motions as though they, too, can't wait for the conclusion so they can all go home for ice cream. It looks good, they look good, but it isn't much good...

Probably my favorite out series. They finally make it past the wall and find a whole new world with advance technicallogy. Just like there world the other civilization has there own evil agendas.

> Realising what's left behind was the home.
Here comes the most expected adventure in the 'Divergent' series. I always wondered what lies outside the wall. So this sequel takes us to the new land where a fresh development takes place. A few old characters were terminated in order to introduce a bunch of new ones. As a theme, it just looked like 'The Scorch Trial', but of course totally a different setting.
The director was retained from the previous installment and I think he did a good job. The concept was too familiar. 'Scorch Trial', 'Catching Fire', 'Aeon Flux', all these films are just like this one. Thankfully, this story was decent. At least better than the previous and weaker than the first. The pace drastically held back due to the split of a book into two films. It has been done in the old days, but the present trend began after 'Deathly Hallows'.
I was excited to know how big stretch it is going to be as a story wise. Because it looked like the things they've accomplished in one place and looking to explore beyond the boundary. I couldn't predict the story, but I knew what's going to happen in the end of every scene. The dystopian theme was clichéd, not the storyline. The way it ended is a sign for a big finale to commence in the final film of the series. Let's hope for 'Ascendant' to end on a high note.
6/10

The first compulsion is to reach for an unflattering label when dubbing the third installment of the **Divergent** series as "the poor man's **Hunger Games**". Sure, the comparison was inevitable but all the Divergent editions had to do was prove that the unfair comparing and contrasting were wrong. Well, the knockoff status was indeed warranted and unfortunately this copycat YA Sci-Fi serving of a harried heroine and her excitable dystopian dealings never mustered up the kind of distinctive expectations that failed to fuel this flaccid futuristic fable. Hence, **The Divergent Series: Allegiant** is an over-stuffed mechanical continuation of a familiar film franchise trying desperately to fulfill its colorful action-packed whimsy left over by its pumped-up predecessors.
As mentioned, **Allegiant** is the third episode of the **Divergent** movie series. Of course Veronica Roth is the literary voice responsible for the books on which these films are based. Jokingly, one would probably imagine that both Roth and **Hunger Games** author Suzanne Collins are twin sisters seeing as though their imaginative wells of creativity are similar in style and content. The only difference is that Collins's notable blueprint registered with forceful reception while Roth's wannabe material was like an identical shadow trying to break out in its own shade.
Basically, **Allegiant** (much like the rest of the YA genre) is a glorified teen soap opera bombarded with awesome ray guns and youthful cynicism aimed at the controlling over-30 Establishment. Distrust and disillusionment is the recurring theme and the penalty for being young, attractive, repressed and rebellious is a cautionary tale for those that want to challenge the sinister Authority. As with **The Hunger Games'** Katniss Everdeen (played by Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence) we are subjected to Divergent diva Tris Pryor (Shailine Woodley) as the feminine firecracker ready to spring into action defeating the aging forces threatening their post- apocalyptic presence. Unfortunately for Woodley's Tris she does not possess the explosive brooding or riveting material and eye-opening challenges that Lawrence's Katniss was blessed with from the get-go. At least one common denominator is clear: both bad-ass babes have totally catchy, cool-sounding names, right?
The sluggish plotting in **Allegiant** revisits the enclosed post-apocalyptic Chicago where various "factions" of young folks are furiously fighting with one another. The tension is percolating big time as the trapped youthful residents are growing increasingly restless. The disenchanted Tris, along with her studly boyfriend Four (Theo James) and group of rebels, decide to break out of their Chicago-bound doldrums and climb the wall to escape their entrapment. Of course this means crossing over some treacherous terrain to reach a more, idyllic surrounding. The destination, as it turns out, is the comfortable haven for the monitoring overlords spying their every step.
Thankfully, Tris and her bunch stumble upon a picturesque civilization headed by leader David (Emmy-winner Jeff Daniels). The surroundings look idyllic but David is very shady because his agenda is to recruit the pure and precious Tris for his genetic experimentation. With Tris as his main guinea pig the devious David can plan on using his experimental agenda on the underprivileged pretty kids back in the walled-off Chicago. The educated guess is that David most likely would extend the same kind of testing treatment for "the Fringes" as well (they are the masses that exist outside the wall of Chicago in less flattering pockets of the region). In any event, Tris represents the ideal vision for his replication of purity and perfection to be transferred to the "damaged" souls out there. While Tris is intrigued by the CEO's intention for bettering the impoverished population Four is skeptical about David's focus on his gun-toting honey bunny.
To say that **The Divergent Series--Allegiant** is clunky and convoluted even for a showy older kiddie caper is an understatement to say the least. Director Robert Schwentke is basically on auto pilot here as the cameras roll while capturing the drawn out degrees of splashy stunts, showdowns and bombastic special effects flourishes. The silly-minded plot and utter familiarity of the "Big Brother watching over the young perished pretty people" feels empty and repetitive at its compelling core. One cannot perceive the transparent concept of **Allegiant** going through the motions without looking at this anemic actioner as a convenient means to bridge the upcoming remaining installments to protect its promising box office clout. So for those looking forward to **Ascendant** please hold your horses because this is what **Allegiant** strives for...to make one salivate over the next due edition to this tiring movie series.
Sure, **The Divergent Series--Allegiant** and perhaps **Ascendant** will offer more of the same and if this is something that its avid fans do not mind then fine...knock yourselves out to your heart's redundant content.
**The Divergent Series--Allegiant** (2016)
Lionsgate
2 hrs. 1 min.
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Ray Stevenson, Jeff Daniels, Zoe Kravitz and Miles Teller
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action & Adventure/Fantasy/Romance
Critic's Rating: ** stars (out of 4 stars)
(c) Frank Ochieng 2016